The three giants of optical module equipment are expanding production in a fierce competition—Are KEG Precision Machinery, Bozhong Precision, and Autowinning big winners?

Let’s talk about automation equipment—most of the time it’s pretty boring. But when you put it in the optical module space, the logic changes.

This thing isn’t “optional” anymore—it’s “necessary.”

Let’s first do some straight, practical math: the payback period.

On the Keg Precision Machinery line, a single line can replace 80 workers. If, in China, one worker’s annual salary is 100,000, that doesn’t seem unreasonable. In a year, the labor cost saved is 8 million. How much does an automation production line cost? Roughly a little over 8 million to 10 million. Divide it like that, and in a year—maybe even less—the equipment money is already back.

Who can’t figure out this business math?

What’s more, this still hasn’t included the yield/defect-rate numbers.

Previously, people thought labor was cheap because they didn’t account for the money lost to “scrap.” At 800G it’s still manageable, but in the 1.6T era—what about that coupling precision? Relying on manual work and the naked eye? Honestly, that’s really not something you can get done. When machines place and process parts, the consistency is high, and the yield shoots up. The savings are all pure profit. And for overseas capacity expansion, you don’t need to say more—the workforce quality and management costs in Southeast Asia, you know. Automation is the only solution.

After talking about the money, let’s talk about what these three companies are specifically doing.

Keg Precision Machinery—the market is炒 it because of a solder paste printing machine? I think that’s a thing of the past. What it’s doing now is an optical module automation production line. From 400G to 1.6T, it can handle assembly line systems, and it has already obtained orders from leading customers. This kind of thing has exclusivity. Once you get in, capacity expansion afterward is basically copy-paste.

Both Technology Precision Engineering—recently it made a very key move. It acquired Zhongnan Hongsi. What does Zhongnan Hongsi do? Optical automatic coupling. This is one of the most “bottleneck” steps in optical module packaging. Before, everyone worried that Both Technology only had pick-and-place without coupling. Now it completes the chain—“pick-and-place + coupling,” end to end. So the story fits together. When it connects with customers like Xin Yisheng and LianTe, it has even more confidence.

ASMPTA?—Autotech (Autotech) is a bit different. It mainly focuses on AOI inspection. Optical modules are small with high integration. What about the quality of the soldering inside—whether there are impurities? The human eye can’t really see it. The 3D scanning plus deep learning algorithm it develops is basically like giving optical modules a “CT.” This step was easy to overlook before, but as speeds increase, the value share of inspection equipment is actually rising. It cuts into this niche in a smart way, avoiding the red-sea competition of assembly lines, and specializes in being the “quality gatekeeper.”

One last thing to say.

The market always thinks equipment stocks are a one-off purchase—once capacity expansion is done, there’s no more. But optical modules are different. Tech iterations are moving too fast. 800G is only just starting to ramp, 1.6T is here, and then there’s CPO. Every time the technology changes, the current production lines may need major rework or even be replaced entirely.

So this isn’t a one-time capital expenditure—it’s a wave of upgrade demand, one after another.

The logic is very clear. It just comes down to who can truly secure big-factory orders. Don’t just look at the concepts—watch who is actually delivering for JITC (JITC) and Xin Yisheng.